Peotone airport

October 01, 2012

Governor Pat Quinn is again promoting the proposed Peotone airport, as if it were needed, as if the bankrupt airline industry were not totally opposed, as if the limited jobs created would amount to more than temporary construction jobs, as if it would be anything other than a white elephant, like downstate MidAmerica Airport, sitting virtually empty for the last 14 years, as if powerful regional player Mayor Rahm Emanuel had not expressed opposition to Peotone.

Quinn wants the Illinois General Assembly to appropriate another $71 million to forcefully take land from unwilling farmers and homeowners for an airport that is years from FAA approval and will probably never be built.

I have questions for the Governor. Who will pay for the airport? SNC-Lavalin, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.’s disgraced Canadian transnational developer with a history of bribing elected officials to promote their mega-projects? (I encourage readers to Google "Lavalin corruption.") Who will pay for surrounding infrastructure, such as new and upgraded roads, bridges, sewer, water, flood control, etc.? Is the timing of the recent announcement promoting Peotone designed to give Democrats running for office a "jobs program" to tout? Isn’t there a moral issue when the bankrupt state of Illinois wants to borrow another $71 million to forcefully take land and shoot the dice on a risky project while slashing services to the mentally ill, the elderly and children? Governor, is there a shred of sanity left in Illinois state government?

— George Ochsenfeld, President of Shut This Airport Nightmare Down, Monee